Death has never stopped people from wanting to speak to their friends and family. For centuries, people have gone to great lengths to reach out to the afterlife, including coming up with elaborate rituals and even inventing devices to communicate with the dead. Some methods were rooted in religious traditions, while others came about during the Spiritualist movement of the 19th century. Here are eight of the creepiest ways people have attempted to contact the dead.
Holding Victorian Séances
During the 19th century Spiritualist movement, séances became very popular. These gatherings were used as a way to communicate with dead relatives. Participants sat at a table in a dim room, while a medium tried to establish contact with the spirit world. The experience could involve knocking sounds, shifting furniture, or disembodied voices. Some séances were super theatrical, with reports of spirits producing ectoplasm or suddenly materializing. Unsurprisingly, investigations found many fraudulent mediums using tricks.
Photographing Ghosts
Today, professional photography categories include lifestyle, wedding, and portrait, but more than a century ago, there was spirit photography. When photography became more widely available in the 19th century, some people believed it might finally provide a way to see the dead. Spirit photographers claimed they could capture deceased people on film, usually hovering around living relatives. They tended to look like pale, translucent figures. One of the most famous spirit photographers was William H. Mumler, who took a photograph that appeared to show Mary Todd Lincoln with the ghostly figure of her deceased husband, Abraham Lincoln. However, many of these images were made using techniques like double exposure.
Using Automatic Writing
Automatic writing involves allowing a hand to write continually across paper while receiving messages from a supernatural entity. The person doing the writing is not in conscious control of their actions. During the Spiritualist era, it was common to find mediums who entered a trance-like state and began scribbling vigorously. They wrote pages of communication they claimed came from the dead. Psychologists offer a logical explanation for automatic writing that involves unconscious mental processes.
Staring Into Mirrors to See the Dead
Way before the Ouija board existed, people were using reflective surfaces to look beyond the physical world. The practice of divination using mirrors, known as catoptromancy, actually dates all the way back to antiquity. Practitioners stared into any reflective surface, like polished metal or mirrors, and waited for a vision. A psychiatrist named Raymond Moody once experimented with the concept using a mirror-gazing room, or psychomanteum. He found that long periods of time spent mirror-gazing in dim lighting can produce visual distortions.
Listening for Voices in Radio Static
Modern day paranormal investigators have experimented with electronic equipment in hopes of hearing messages from the dead. One well-known figure was Friedrich Jürgenson, who claimed to hear voices on tape recordings he made in the late 1950s. He popularized what became known as electronic voice phenomena, or EVP. Investigators today use so-called spirit boxes that rapidly scan radio frequencies for words and messages. The problem is that human brains are experts at finding recognizable patterns in random sounds.
Practicing Table-Turning
Pre Ouija boards, table-turning was a huge supernatural craze in the 1850s. Participants placed their hands on a table and waited for it to move, tilt, or make knocking sounds. Some groups developed systems, and the table supposedly answered questions by knocking to indicate yes and no. The practice even got some serious scientific attention, including experiments by physicist Michael Faraday, who showed that unconscious muscular movements could be behind the phenomenon.
Using a Spirit Trumpet
One of the stranger inventions tied to Spiritualism was the spirit trumpet, a cone-shaped tool used during séances. Apparently, spirits speaking through the trumpet could make their voices louder and therefore easier to understand. During some widely talked-about sessions, the trumpet was reported to have floated around the room delivering messages from the dead. The image of a spooky metal cone floating through a dark room and emitting the voice of a dead relative is as unsettling as it is bizarre.
Performing Necromantic Rituals
Necromancy is one of the oldest and most disturbing ways people have tried to talk to the dead. In the ancient world, rituals involved attempts to consult deceased individuals. Homer’s Odyssey describes Odysseus performing a ritual to summon the dead. He does so to get advice from the prophet Tiresias. Later European magical traditions had people doing elaborate activities to summon the dead. They would form circles, recite invocations, and perform rituals all with the goal of compelling beings to appear. Unlike the polite approach of a Victorian séance, necromancy involved directly commanding the dead to appear of answer questions.